


Inadvisable Occult Encounters: A Case Study

by phoenixflight



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Halloween, inadvisable use of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 20:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21124517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixflight/pseuds/phoenixflight
Summary: Some occult dabbling interrupts Crowley and Aziraphale's evening.





	Inadvisable Occult Encounters: A Case Study

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallredboy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/gifts).

> The timeline for this matches the TV show, not the novel. Written for a spooky, seasonal prompt which I loved from smallredboy! Hope you enjoy :)

Rain lashed against the plate glass window of the bookstore.

“Do you know what day it is, angel?” Crowley said, cradling a wine glass in one hand, sprawled in an armchair.

“A Tuesday?” Aziraphale ventured, looking up from the stack of Elizabethan poetry he was cataloging.

“It’s Hallowe’en.” Crowley flicked his tongue at the end of the word, just a bit of sibilance slipping through the syllables.

“Oh yes. I did notice a bit of a fuss of pumpkins around the shops the last few weeks. Imagine being in America,” Aziraphale said with a shudder. “Children knocking on the door demanding treats!”

“Yes, and not a good trick among the lot of them these days,” Crowley mused. “Back in the day a whole town would celebrate the festival together. Good excuse for some fun, Hallows Eve.”

Aziraphale shut the tome he was pouring over. “Really, I don’t see what’s wrong with a quiet night in. Especially as the weather turns. Who would want to be out in this? More wine?”

“Not me.” Crowley tipped the glass for Aziraphale to top up, and slouched down further in his chair, knees falling open suggestively. “I’m right where I want to be.”

Putting down the bottle of wine, Aziraphale smiled and opened his mouth, but before he could reply, there was a crackle of orange light and Crowley’s eyes widened for an instant before he vanished, leaving only a lingering scent of incense.

“Oh, damn,” said Aziraphale.

If it had been hellish interference there would have been a stench of sulfur, and likewise the lack of heavenly light was telling. In any case, Heaven and Hell had been leaving them alone, in what Aziraphale suspected was the classic PR tactic of “if we ignore this embarrassing incident perhaps the public will forget it happened.” Garden variety summoning, probably. Not many people had to power to actually do it, but the hallmarks were always the same. Cheap incense or sage, a flicker of candle light. And of course, it was Halloween.

Aziraphale sighed.

He couldn’t simply go popping into other people’s heads looking for Crowley, not without discorporating. Getting a new body was always such a hassle; Heaven didn’t hand out new bodies right and left, after all. Waste not, want not and all that. And Aziraphale wasn't exactly in Heaven's good books since the apocalypse that never happened. But really, what else was there to do? Crowley could be anywhere. Even... _America_.

His phone rang.

Crowley blinked and straightened. “Oh for the love of-”

He was kneeling in the center of a chalked pentagram, surrounded by dribbly candles, sticks of incense, various crystals, and half a dozen stunned teenagers. He was still holding his wine glass and the 1982 cabernet had spilled all down his blazer.

“Who’s bright idea was this?” he snapped. “Demonic summoning? Really? Couldn’t have gone for anything else? Horror films? Tarot reading? Ouija board? Can’t guarantee that’s less dangerous, really, but certainly less disruptive to _my_ night.”

The kids were still gaping at him. One of them had her hands clapped over her mouth.

“Alright, you know not what dread powers you disturb, quail before the forces of hell and all that. I need to use someone’s phone.”

There was silence, except for the sound of traffic outside and someone hyperventilating.

“I know all you little buggers have one. I need to make a call. Where are we, anyway?” There were city lights through the window, and the band posters on the walls were in English, but that didn’t mean anything.

A girl with a blue pixie cut and black lipstick gulped. “What?” Her accent was unmistakable.

“Manchester, really?”

“Um, we’re in East Croyden,” piped up a kid with a nose piercing, who was holding a heavy silver medallion. “Stella _is_ from Stockport though.”

“Ash,” Stella snapped. “Don’t tell him anything! He’s a demon.”

Crowley perked up. “That’s not so bad. Still it’ll take an hour to get back by train.” He thought longingly of the Bentley, safely parked in front of Aziraphale’s shop. “Phone? Anybody? I charge you by the dark powers vested in me,” he added.

A phone was procured. Crowley dialed by memory.

Please let him have left the ringer on, Crowley thought, to no one in particular since prayer was not part of a demon’s vocabulary. Aziraphale had traded his ancient landline for a cell phone a couple of years ago at the Them’s insistence. The phone was always charged, just like the Bentley was always fueled, but it was a toss-up whether Aziraphale had gotten annoyed with it and put it on silent. Sometimes he glared at the phone so hard while silencing it that the phone got nervous and refused to ring even after the sound had been turned on.

The line clicked. Crowley sighed. “It’s me. Uh-huh. Yeah, the usual nonsense. Listen, I’m in Croyden, can you come get me? Yes, in the car. No, you don’t have to drive, the Bentley can handle the whole thing. Yes, I know. I _know,_ angel. Okay. Okay, _thank_ you. Yes, I’ll tell them.” He snapped the phone shut, and looked at the amateur coven. “He says to tell you this is very inconvenient.”

“Um. Sorry?” squeaked Ash.

Crowley settled back on his haunches inside the pentagram. “So, what did you kids want anyway?”

Forty minutes later, Crowley was behind the steering wheel of the Bentley, taking them back on the A23 toward London proper. “...and I told them, you don’t need to summon a demon to deal with a bully. You just gotta turn their audience against ‘em. Little bit of humor, little bit of superiority, sticking with your friends.”

“Well I’m glad you gave them good advice. Not the whole hot-poker routine.”

“Told ‘em hot pokers were a last resort.”

“What I don’t understand,” Aziraphale continued, ignoring him, “is how this bunch of kids got up power like that anyway. Summonings hardly ever work.”

Crowley reaching into his jacket and pulled out a heavy silver medallion, passing it across to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale turned the medallion over in his hands. “This shouldn’t have done it. Look.” He tilted it toward the light of the passing street signs. The stamped MADE IN CHINA glinted on the back.

“I saw that. But get this; Ash’s big sister goes to Queen Mary. Environmental science program. Sound familiar?”

Aziraphale frowned. “Isn’t that where Adam goes to uni?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” Crowley replied. “Ash’s sister said some boy gave it to her and promised it was real magic. Ash, having an interest in the occult, borrowed it for their séance.”

Aziraphale sighed. “Looks like we need to pay Adam another visit.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed, stretching his arm out along the back of the bench seat. “But not tonight.”


End file.
